Kurds and Kurdistan 431Kufic script and al-Kufa Kufior kuficis an Arabic
adjective denoting something connected with the city of
al-Kufa in IRAQand used specifically to describe the for-
mal script mainly employed in Quranic manuscripts and
monumental epigraphy from the eighth to the 12th cen-
tury. Later, Islamic and Western authors used the term
more generally to describe any script with similar angular
letters. The prototype of these scripts probably originated
in late-seventh-century SYRIA. Their subsequent associa-
tion with the city of al-Kufa was made because that city
was a leading center of religious studies and producer of
manuscripts during the eighth and ninth centuries.
Further reading:Aida S. Arif, Arabic Lapidary Kufic
in Africa: Egypt, North Africa, Suda: A Study of the Devel-
opment of the Kufic Script (3rd–6th century A.H./9th–12th
century A.D.) (London: Luzac, 1967); Gabriel Mandel
Khan, Arabic Script: Styles, Variants, and Calligraphic
Adaptions,trans. Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia (New
York: Abbeville Press, 2001).
Kurds and Kurdistan The Kurds are an Indo-Euro-
pean people who have lived for centuries in eastern and
southern parts of ANATOLIAin Turkey, in the northwest of
IRAN, near the northern part of the Zagros mountain
chain, the northern and northeastern parts of IRAQ, and
the northeasternmost part of SYRIA. They were never able
to form a lasting political entity. The actual name Kurdis-
tan for the land of the Kurds seemed to date only from
the SELJUKperiod, when the Turkish sultan Sanjar (d.
1157) created a province of that name based on a town
north of Hamadan. The actual historical origins of the
Kurdish people might have occurred in Sumerian and
Assyrian times.
RELATIONS WITH EARLY ISLAMBy the time of the Islamic expansion of the Arabs, the
term Kurd was applied to groups of Iranian or Iranized
tribes. They were conquered by the ARABSin 640. Under
the early Islamic empire, the Kurds were a tribally orga-
nized and somewhat autonomous people with both
nomadic and sedentary elements and were listed in the
Arabic sources from the 10th century onward with a bel-
licose and predatory reputation. The caliphs frequently
sent punitive expeditions to suppress rebellions and to
curb raids on the lowland regions of upper Mesopotamia.
During the 10th and 11th centuries, various Kurdish
groups, because of their military and political power and
skills, formed states that were in effect autonomous of the
caliph in BAGHDAD. They waged war against the Christian
Georgians, Armenians, and Byzantines and tried to halt
the westward migrations of the Seljuk Turks in the 11th
century. They failed and became vassals or allies of the
Seljuks. They continued to supply excellent soldiers to
numerous Muslim regimes.AYYUBIDS AND MONGOLS
The AYYUBIDdynasty, that of SALADINand his successors
between 1169 and the late 15th century, was the high
point of Kurdish influence on Islam. Ayyub ibn Shadhi
(d. 1173), founder of the dynasty and father of Saladin,
was a member of the Hadhbani tribe of Kurds. A strong
Kurdish element in the armies and the administration of
the Ayyubids was always present. The MONGOLinvasions
of the 13th century and their control of much of the cen-
tral Middle East crushed the political power of the Kur-
dish tribes. From then on, the Kurds remained essentially
intractable to outside control, striving always to protect
their autonomy from the MAMLUKS, the IL-KHANIDS, vari-
ous Turkish dynasties, the OTTOMANTurks, and the Per-
sian Safavids.
See alsoARMENIA.
Further reading: T. Bois, Vladimir F. Minorsky,
“Kurs, Kurdistan,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 5.449–464;
John Bulloch, No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic
History of the Kurds(Hammondsworth: Viking, 1992);
Hassan Arfa, The Kurds: An Historical and Political Study
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).